The Last Temptation of Christ
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
Production
Budget
$7 000 000
Revenue
$8 373 624
Director
Scenario
Nikos Kazantzakis
Author
Composer
Producer
Barbara De Fina
Actors
Willem Dafoe
Jesus
Harvey Keitel
Judas
Paul Greco
Zealot
Steve Shill
Centurian
Verna Bloom
Mary, Mother of Jesus
Barbara Hershey
Mary Magdalene
Roberts Blossom
Aged Master
Barry Miller
Jeroboam
Short description
A Judean carpenter named Jesus hears voices and sees visions that convince him he has been chosen, though he cannot tell whether the calling comes from God or from the devil. His friend Judas urges him toward armed revolt against the Roman occupiers, while Jesus insists that love rather than violence offers the way to salvation. The tension between those two paths shapes his ministry, his sense of himself, and the suffering that follows.
Martin Scorsese directed the film, the fourteenth of the thirty-eight features he has made, coming between Bad and New York Stories. Paul Schrader and Jay Cocks wrote the screenplay, adapted from Nikos Kazantzakis's 1955 novel, and Barbara De Fina produced. Willem Dafoe plays Jesus, with Harvey Keitel as Judas, Barbara Hershey as Mary Magdalene, Verna Bloom as Mary the mother of Jesus, and Paul Greco as a Zealot, among a credited cast of fifty-five. Made for about seven million dollars, it returned roughly eight million worldwide. On IMDb it holds 7.5 from around 68,000 votes, on TMDB 7.2 from 1,241, while a critics' rating stands at 7.7 from 106 reviews.
What's left behind the scenes
- As an experienced stuntman, Nash Edgerton performed almost all of his own stunts in the chase scene.
- Scorsese first attempted to film an adaptation of the book in 1983. Filming began at Paramount Pictures with a budget of around $20 million. Aidan Quinn was to play Jesus, Harvey Keitel as Judas, and Sting as Pontius Pilate. The filming was halted shortly after starting, despite $3 million already being spent. This happened after a series of letters to the film company’s management from extremist Christian organizations. The filmmakers were accused of antisemitism and attempting to present their own interpretation of the biblical theme with homosexual undertones. This story deeply affected the director, and he even considered moving to Europe and switching to documentary filmmaking. In an interview, Scorsese bitterly noted that Hollywood cinema had become completely commercialized, saying: “I hope someday I will still film ‘The Last Temptation…’, but not in this country and not with this country’s money. That’s it. Forget about it. This film has nothing to do with the American film industry.” In 1987, Scorsese began working with a new agent, Michael Ovitz. Ovitz, who enjoyed great authority and connections in the film world, was able to get the project moving again. For the second time, Scorsese managed to interest Universal Pictures in the script. When one of the studio bosses asked the director why he decided to film a movie on such a topic, Scorsese replied that he wanted to better understand the nature of Christ. The company agreed to provide funding for the project, but only on the condition that Scorsese's next film for Universal Pictures would be strictly commercial.
- Based on the real story of bank robber Brenden Abbott and his accomplice Brendan Berichon.
- Martin Scorsese strictly forbade smoking on the set because he himself has asthma, and to prevent anyone from photographing the actors and actresses in the guise of biblical characters – this especially applied to Willem Dafoe, who played Jesus and smoked incessantly – with a cigarette in his mouth.
- "The Last Temptation of Christ" is a film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Nikos Kazantzakis.
- The epigraph to the film is a quote by Nikos Kazantzakis: "The dual nature of Christ—man’s greatest longing to know God, a longing so human and yet so inhuman… has always been a mystery to me. From early youth, my deepest suffering and the source of all my joys and torments has been the ceaseless and merciless battle between spirit and flesh… and my soul has been the arena where these two armies met and clashed."
- Willem Dafoe couldn't see anything for three days because special eye drops were used on him, which dilated his pupils even in bright sunlight.
- Martin Scorsese first read the novel ‘The Last Temptation’ (1955) by Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957) when Barbara Hershey recommended the book to him while filming Scorsese’s second feature film (it was the 1972 crime melodrama ‘Boxcar Bertha’). After reading many years later that Scorsese had finally been given the opportunity to film this movie, she called him and literally begged the director to cast her as Mary Magdalene. Scorsese even held a screen test with her so that the actress would not think he was casting her out of gratitude for her recommending the source novel to him many years ago.
- The film’s budget was so tight that they had to save on everything. There weren't enough makeup artists on set, and Barbara Hershey had to fix her own mendhi (henna body art; unlike tattoos, it is a temporary decoration, but lasts much longer than paint, etc.) herself, as it kept smudging under the scorching sun.
- According to Martin Scorsese, the film's final shot was due to chance. Due to some defect, light entered the camera and hit the film, creating a white haze just at the moment of Jesus’s death.
- The film’s budget was quite modest, so in the scene in the temple, when it seems like Roman soldiers are approaching Christ from all sides, the same five soldiers were used in all the shots.
- Brenton Thwaites' character moves in criminal circles. In preparation for the role, the actor befriended a man who received a prison sentence at a very young age and spent most of his life behind bars. Thwaites adopted many traits from him.
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